While I’m very much on board with the equality quote for the white-male thing (If you’re privileged, you shouldn’t be making comments about welfare and employment), I don’t know if that has so much equivalence to being a game dev. In the end, a small team of people are the ones with the control to make and update the popular game, and that power will never be spread among its playerbase.
The thing is, as obvious as it sounds to say “never act like an ass”, conversational spontaneity is unpredictable, and the simplest and fastest way to achieve that is with the directive “Never speak”. I’ve even seen that issue with coding standards - the best way to never be blamed for a bug is to just never put up any code changes. In social settings, if people try to act in ‘honest’ ways, that can involve sometimes speaking in slightly inflammatory ways towards concepts that they think the group should agree are bad. In this very comment chain, for instance, we’ve made metaphors to oppressive patriarchy from controlling white men. (I’m a white guy with above-average income, by the way, and I’m very okay with that comparison)
So, these developers decided to be more vocal than others in the past (think of every publisher that responds with stock “We recognize your concerns and appreciate your feedback”) and, this unfortunately can be the consequence of that. I know it seems plausible to expect them to be perfect, but they’re human - not much different from all other internet commenters. I’d even question whether everyone here knows the full context of the comments that are receiving complaints. Quite often, when people are putting attention on you, they can selectively quote you to make you seem terrible. (“I KILLED EARL MILFORD.”)
If your position is simply “Devs shouldn’t speak outside of patch notes and press releases”, that’s kind of a fair stance, I just want to make sure that’s what you intend.
Honestly, I don’t personally think that developers stop speaking to players directly. But doing so can have consequences, especially if you decide to take a more antagonistic attitude. And dealing with those consequences is the price you pay for more direct communications.
All of this drama is dumb for many reasons. It was dumb for the original comments from players that were insulting towards the devs. It’s dumb for a developer to respond in kind. And it’s dumb that people get so worked up in turn for the developer’s comments (especially the “they should be fired” cries).
But the clear point in the chain that can be severed here is on the developer’s shoulders. We’ll never get rid of 100% of the negativity/toxicity in gaming, but we can limit how much it becomes a part of the community.
While I’m very much on board with the equality quote for the white-male thing (If you’re privileged, you shouldn’t be making comments about welfare and employment), I don’t know if that has so much equivalence to being a game dev. In the end, a small team of people are the ones with the control to make and update the popular game, and that power will never be spread among its playerbase.
The thing is, as obvious as it sounds to say “never act like an ass”, conversational spontaneity is unpredictable, and the simplest and fastest way to achieve that is with the directive “Never speak”. I’ve even seen that issue with coding standards - the best way to never be blamed for a bug is to just never put up any code changes. In social settings, if people try to act in ‘honest’ ways, that can involve sometimes speaking in slightly inflammatory ways towards concepts that they think the group should agree are bad. In this very comment chain, for instance, we’ve made metaphors to oppressive patriarchy from controlling white men. (I’m a white guy with above-average income, by the way, and I’m very okay with that comparison)
So, these developers decided to be more vocal than others in the past (think of every publisher that responds with stock “We recognize your concerns and appreciate your feedback”) and, this unfortunately can be the consequence of that. I know it seems plausible to expect them to be perfect, but they’re human - not much different from all other internet commenters. I’d even question whether everyone here knows the full context of the comments that are receiving complaints. Quite often, when people are putting attention on you, they can selectively quote you to make you seem terrible. (“I KILLED EARL MILFORD.”)
If your position is simply “Devs shouldn’t speak outside of patch notes and press releases”, that’s kind of a fair stance, I just want to make sure that’s what you intend.
Honestly, I don’t personally think that developers stop speaking to players directly. But doing so can have consequences, especially if you decide to take a more antagonistic attitude. And dealing with those consequences is the price you pay for more direct communications.
All of this drama is dumb for many reasons. It was dumb for the original comments from players that were insulting towards the devs. It’s dumb for a developer to respond in kind. And it’s dumb that people get so worked up in turn for the developer’s comments (especially the “they should be fired” cries).
But the clear point in the chain that can be severed here is on the developer’s shoulders. We’ll never get rid of 100% of the negativity/toxicity in gaming, but we can limit how much it becomes a part of the community.